thoughts on colonization

[lord of the mark]

Ive uninstalled it, as the dino needs alot of space for Monkey Island 4. and i after getting part way through my first game, i wasnt inclined to play it that much more.

And yet I can see why its considered a great game, and why some are so nostalgic for it. I really like the game mechanics, with the cross between Civ style empire builder and detailed Settlers type economic model. And the larger strategic items, the relations with the natives, with the mother country,the founding fathers, the different approaches to getting trained settlers and troops, etc offer many different strategic choices, and decisions at many points that matter, and questions about best strategy for each country, and for different starting geographical positions. And the production values, the music and graphics, are probably pretty good for their time. In fact the music is pretty good period - one of the best parts of the game for me.

BUT - its a typical Brian Reynolds design in some ways - lots of strategic depth, that you know its going to take quite some time to really master. Reminds me of SMAC even more than Civ2 in that respect. And like SMAC, i had to step back and ask if im going to play this enough to make it worth going through the learning curve. With SMAC I ultimately said no, mainly cause the subject matter wasnt appealing enough to me (Ive discussed that elsewhere on this site) Now Colonization had subject matter that is quite appealing to me. The greatest story ever told, as ive said. But ultimately I had trouble with, what, I guess, one would call the production values. Probably cause im playing a 1992 (?) game in 2006. The graphics are not just old - ive been spoiled by, you, know, circa 1999 era graphics (and note I was playing DOS Colonization, as I couldnt get the Windows version to run) - its that its sometimes difficult to get adequate info - its just too hard to see stuff (im not sure if thats entirely the period, or if its BR - SMAC was also hard to see sometimes) And the UI leaves much to be desired - again, it may be good for its time, but there is plenty of info its too hard to find. Even the Civ2 UI is a leap over it, and of course SMAC is even better in that regard. So maybe if Id come to this game 10 or more years ago Id appreciate it better. Again, I can see it was a great game, but I dont feel the craving to play it.

[DrSpike]

Sadly it is thus in gaming - there comes a time when you truly have to be a masochist to play old classics.

Bring on Col2

[snoopy369]

Col2

Heck, even just a Civ4 Col mod ...

[DrSpike]

Hell, I'd rather that than another perfectly ok but not inspiring x-pack.

[conmcb25]

Col 2 FTW

[Verrucosus]

Mmmm, Colonization. I couldn't play it when it first came out because it requires 5 MB space and I had a 1 MB hard disk at the time.

Seriously, I recommend reinstalling it and giving it another try. I agree that the graphics are not exactly spectacular. More importantly, the more sophisticated economic model can cause a micromanagement nightmare that even Civilization seems incapable of. On top of everything, the main automation feature (trade routes) is - in my experience - rather buggy.

Despite of all this, I still play Colonization once or twice a year and have lots of fun doing so. I suppose it's the endgame that makes Colonization refreshingly different from other games in the genre. While the war of independence itself can be an exceedingly boring affair (particularly if you wait too long with proclaiming independence), the fact that you know it's coming at the end makes all the decisions that precede it seem more important. It's probably just a psychological trick, but it works for me all the time.

Verrucosus

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
Mmmm, Colonization. I couldn't play it when it first came out because it requires 5 MB space and I had a 1 MB hard disk at the time.

[Verrucosus]

Oh, I'm afraid that I didn't put that correctly. I don't remember the hard disk size itself. What I meant to say is that I only had 1 MB of hard disk space left (after installing DOS, Windows, Winword, Civilization and Railroad Tycoon). I remember that even removing the two other games wouldn't have given me enough space, so I enjoyed three years of just reading the manual before I could play it.

[DrSpike]

I wasn't actually laughing at the factual inaccuracy. I was remembering my first computer, that had 48k RAM. And that was dodgy.

[El_Cid]

The only problem i had with it was it encouraged the player to persecute native americans either by waging religious war(my god IS better than your god - such intollerance) or selling then guns+whisky. Of course this IS the story of America and it was a decent simulation of such.

I was just sad i couldn't change history in the game, and you know be nice to the natives - maybe the world would have been a better place?

[DrSpike]

Yeah, who knows what Americans might have turned out like?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Verrucosus
More importantly, the more sophisticated economic model can cause a micromanagement nightmare that even Civilization seems incapable of.

i guess thats in part what i meant when complaining about the UI. Im not sure off the top of my head, but it seemed that there were far fewer alternative ways of viewing the data than in Civ2, and yet there was plenty of data that needed to be looked at.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by El_Cid
The only problem i had with it was it encouraged the player to persecute native americans either by waging religious war(my god IS better than your god - such intollerance) or selling then guns+whisky. Of course this IS the story of America and it was a decent simulation of such.

I was just sad i couldn't change history in the game, and you know be nice to the natives - maybe the world would have been a better place?

OTL guns and whiskey were sold by private traders for profit. I never got as far as having a big industry in either - are they particularly lucractive commodities for sale to natives? How in game terms does this "persecute" the natives? Do they use the guns for wars on each other?

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


OTL guns and whiskey were sold by private traders for profit. I never got as far as having a big industry in either - are they particularly lucractive commodities for sale to natives? How in game terms does this "persecute" the natives? Do they use the guns for wars on each other?

yes i think it did work a little like that.
IIRC they were trade items, to build relationships with the natices before you go in and bash them on the head with a bible in your hand(and of course the gun in the other ).

Still one fun aspect of trading guns(horses as well now i think on it), was that if you needed to then go in guns blazing - well the indians would be fireing guns back, from horses - so that was a pretty cool game mechanism.

And i'm sure if you look into it,you will find the hand of the 'government' behind sales of particualy alcohol, but also guns to the native americans(historicaly speaking - not ref the game). I believe is was part of the policy for 'the pacification of the tribes' or something like that.

lol - colonisation was 'just a game', which i did enjoy( i loved the music on the amiga version - excellent), but because of these issues that reflect actual historic events, i did find it uncomfortable to play.

Hmm thats the problem with most games now - its 'just entertainment', games like Colonisation were so much more imho

[Standup]

I always have similar feelings of guilt with Imperialism 2 when my natural builder instincts make me want to trade and develop with the natives but actually the game rewards you more for a bit of old fashioned conquest.